Lalla-Naked-Song

who moves through this poetry. The clarity, and her dancer's simplicity:
amazement felt, stated, and then the moving on. Quick,
sure, un-fancy steps that aren't trying to convince or impress, but
to let you in her life. Her heart's cry is, Om Namah Shivaya, "I bow
to the Highest Consciousness."
I have come to Lalla after fifteen years of collaborative work on
Jelaluddin Rumi. The difference in the two is considerable. Where
Rumi is extravagant, Lalla is spare. Where Rumi is exuberant,
Lalla is cold-sober. Rumi is intricate; Lalla, simple. Rumi works
within a group; Lalla walks alone. Rumi is caressingly affectionate;
Lalla, severely clear. Other polarities could be set up. Rumi is the
imagination in full flower, always moving. Lalla is the condensed
code of the body, the rooted, breathing word.
Yunus Emre, the Turkish mystic, looked at the six volumes of
Rumi's Mathnawi and said, "All these words!" Rumi asked, "How
would you have done it?"
"I would just wrap some skin around some bones and call it
Yunus"
I am reminded of an Emily Dickinson poem,
The infinite a sudden guest
Has been assumed to be,
But how can that stupendous come,
Which never went away.
With Emily, Lalla stays home, like a lotus in the mud, whereas
Rumi plays in the ocean of longing, a restlessness. Which seems
oddly paradoxical to their actual lives: Rumi being located at the
center of a community, and Lalla the wanderer.
What I love about the poems is that they feel close to experience.
Not the daily specifics, but an inner attention. Here is her
statement about the use of poetry for the poet.
I didn't trust it for a moment,
but I drank it anyway,
the wine of my own poetry.